Your morning begins like this, his morning begins like this, her morning begins like this, and my morning begins like this: “Fuck. Is it time to get up already?”

Shortly after the get-up-now-you-fucker ringtone, I got a text buzz from Hair, who had planned to meet me at the top of VdM, from whence we would pedal to the ride. I didn’t even have to look at the screen. The only reason a riding buddy texts you at 5:20 AM is to say, “I’m a lazyfuk and not coming. See you at the Pier,” which is exactly what it said.

Strap it on, bitch

I got up. I put on my undershirt. I put on my bibs. I put on my jersey. I put on my armwarmers and socks and gloves and helmet. I put my tire lever thingy and spare tube and plastic wallet and shit into my back pocket. I aired up my tars and I filled my water bottle, the one that says CalBikeLaw.com just in case some fucker runs me over and I need to dial up my lawyer’s website while I’m bleeding out in the gutter.

I opened the hall closet and rummaged through the shoes that were all dumped on top of each other, looking for my stomp boots. The big red ones with gnarly ridges on the soles so that when I get to stomping on somebody’s dick and it gets caught in the soles the ridges hook onto it good. The big red ones with 47 eyeholes for lacing it up with thick leather laces. The big red ones with the left foot pointy steel toed for drawing blood, and the right steel toed one for just kicking the shit out of something until it’s blunt too.

I laced up those motherfucking stomp boots good and tight.

Then I got my GoAmateur camera and bolted that motherfucker onto the rails of my bike seat using a mos-def K-Edge GoAmateur Seatcam Rail Clamp. It sounds like an antivenin for venereal disease, but it isn’t.

I strapped that bitch onto my bike seat good and tight.

This hero sandwich ain’t got no beef

We got to Pershing and I hit the jets up the little riser. Then I fizzled at the little bend and Hair came stomping by and gapped everyone. Then G$ came stomping by and gapped everyone. Then I drifted back into the wankoton and sucked wheel. I had flat legs and was going to have to sit in and hide from the front like all the other wankers on the NPR usually do.

And you know what I learned? It’s ridiculously easy. I barely cracked a sweat. What a fucking joke. No wonder everyone’s always smiling and chatty and catching up on the news and complimenting each other’s thick, luscious eyelashes and shit.

So then I went and took a pull and felt really terrible, so I stopped doing that. There was a passel of wankers who had steel in their eyes and fire in their bellies and they were determined to get up to the front and lay it down. But they were having difficulty finding the front. I overheard ’em.

“Hey, Wanker #3491, where’s that there front?”

“I was gonna ask you the same thing!”

“Is that it up there?”

“I think so!”

“Let’s go up there, then!”

And off they went and I followed for a way, but sure enough, they got lost and couldn’t find it. I felt sorry for them and tried to help. “Hey, you pussy motherfuckers! The front’s up there! Where all that open space is! And where there’s ten guys in a single line! And where the wind is blowing that steel flagpole double! Get up there and take a pull you lazy motherfuckers!”

They doubled up their efforts and charged up towards the front, but just where the double-wide draft of Pischon and the triple-wide draft of Big Steve and the quadruple-wide draft of Fr8 Train stopped, that’s where they got lost again and drifted back to the back.

Save your bullets, especially when they’re BB’s

On the beginning of the third lap Paul Che attacked into the headwind. Stathis the Wily Greek and Ryan Begley and some other Big Orange dude went with him, and I struggled up to the rear. We had a good gap but got stopped at the light. Just when we put our feet down the pack caught us and the light turned green and there I was in the thick of the wankoton again.

Everybody was so darned happy and the pace was so damned slow, the pack spread out five or six people wide. What a wankfest. It strung out a little with the tailwind, but if you cowered behind Big Steve you got up the little climb without hardly turning your legs, much less hurting. On my right was Hockeystick. On my left was Gooseman. What more proof did I need that it was easy?

Please momma, I promise I’ll stop wetting the bed

On the beginning of the fourth lap I attacked into the headwind. G$ and Don the Referee Dude went with me. We flailed along for a while until the wankoton sort of gave up. G$ took a big pull. Don the Referee Dude came through and flailed, then cracked. I saw he was hurting, and he really seemed like a good guy and I liked him and respected his effort, so I put the knife in his nuts and turned up the pace a couple mph when I came through. He fell out through the bomb bay doors and was gone.

G$ hunkered down and adjusted the “kill” setting on his stomp boots and began to kick the shit out of his pedals like they were made of dicks. It was all I could do to hang on. The wankoton had gotten a big ol’ mouthful of headwind and was choking on it like a dog trying to swallow peanut butter, and we had a gap of 40 or 200 nautical miles. At the turnaround we were about twenty seconds up.

G$ sat up. “I’m going back there, Wanky. You got this one. Get it!”

This was like when my mom used to drop me off at the Harmon School in Houston, before she got my my stuffed tiger, Georgey. I wanted to cry. “Please don’t leave me, mom! I promise I’ll stop peeing in my bed! I promise I’ll stop chewing the liners in your dress shoes! I promise I’ll quit feeding ammonia and aspirin to the dog!”

But it was all to no avail. G$ left me to my own devices, just like at the Harmon School when I had to walk through the gate, sobbing bitter tears as the evil pack of cruel bullies gleefully waited their turn to rip me to shreds. So I wiped my eyes and put my head down and kept stomping the pedals. Pretty soon I was up the riser and had crossed the bridge.

No one in the history of anything has ever been chased down by Prez

You know how when you meet a nice girl and in the first few seconds you kind of hit it off and you both get that good vibe without having to say anything, and then before you’ve even had a chance to introduce yourself she says, “Look, I don’t do anal unless we’re married”?

Well, that’s how it is with Prez. Prez don’t do chasing (not sure about the premarital anal). So you can damn well bet I was chagrined to get caught 100 meters before the finish line, which is the start of the third traffic island, and to have Hair pass me at 40mph, followed by Erik the Vicious, followed in turn by Prez. I checked my post-ride video and there was Prez, leading the chase and leading out Hair and Erik to pimp me after a five-mile breakaway.

I could tell you that I stopped at the stoplight because it was red and because there was a cop there and because I’m a noble and honest dude who doesn’t believe in cheating to win something as silly as a group ride that you can’t even win anyway, but you’d call bullshit and say I was a lying, cheating, underhanded fuck who would stop at nothing to win, including spiking my water bottle with RuggedMAXXX2 and running all the lights, because that’s the kind of bastard I am.

It was a fast and vicious NPR. Records broken, strong men reduced to tears, badass biker chicks flipping they elbows in the face of the sausage strokers, Wankmeister riding with the strategy of Custer’s Last Stand, and Pillsbury stomping the dicks off of all comers. A few whiners longed for the good ol’ days of Admiralty, where every twenty yards the pack would stop and let the wankers catch back on, but the sick, the twisted, the depraved, and the downright addled loved every minute of it.

So…here’s who did what!

Bucks–after the turn on the last lap he came up to me with his front wheel just behind mine and said, “See, I’m at the front.” “Like fuck you are, dude, you need another five inches. Your girlfriends used to say that, too.” He jumped out of the saddle, put it in drive, and took a monster pull, cranking all the way up the rise after the turnaround. Nice!PShon–took a way legit pull westbound on lap one. Big ol’ sprinter boy can pull it and bull it. You listening, Big Steve?Wehrlissimo–flailed and flogged like a madman, as usual. Multiple minions of the SBW persuasion followed Wehrlissimo’s lead, but a couple were downright wankers. Talk to your troops, general!Prez–flawlessly attired in black and white Castelli tights with little brown spots near his, um…and a lovely white and black Assos jersey with matching white Assos shoe covers, an integrated white LAS helmet, a pretty white iPod earbud cord stylishly draped into his back pocket, all perfectly coordinated with a matching black and white bicycle frame. Major style point deductions for the blue brakeset (yuck!) and the yellow stripe on the water bottle (gauche!). Additional deductions for taking one solitary pull the entire fucking time and still only pulling 3rd place out of his ass in the sprunt.John Tomlinson–couple of good rages, pulled away but reeled in. No problem, just went again. And again. Bastard. Ouch!SBW dude–little SBW Hispanic dude laid down some serious smackdown westbound. Ouch! And eastbound. Ouch!Kristabel–totally shamed all the sausage strokers. On lap 3 after the turn there was a big lump of sausages and a thin hard line of about seven dudes driving at the front. Kristabel was in eighth wheel, jamming it while most of the mansplainers with all that good advice about gears and training and wattage were cowering on her fucking wheel. Then she held wheel towards the front westbound on the rise where it was fierce and nasty and snot-filled and groaning under the sweat and agony of a hundred flailing limbs. Mansplainers in the rear whimpered and sucked their thumbs, imagining all the technical mansplanations they’d compose for her and post on her Strava file, which would be 4mph faster than theirs. Yo, sausages! She NEVER CAME OFF. And she, like, only weighs 30 pounds. Time for another mansplanation? I don’t think so.Davy Dawg–lit it up on lap one when I told him about the hookers and blow at the turnaround, then big hoss’d it at the end, but rumor has it he settled for second in the sprunt. **NEWSFLASH** This just in!! Davy Dawg actually took the sprunt for first. FedEx tracking #111111111hookers&blow for overnight victory package.Beammeup Scotty–this Ironfly dog can pull the fucking sled! Lap three up the hill westbound he crushed it, kept it at maximum effort the entire way, nothing left to come around him after he swung over but a bunch of limp, dirty dishrags. Fuck that hurt.Pratfall–least fit guy in North America, rides his fucking bike twice a year, was not afraid to feel the pain by taking multiple hurtful hits at the front. Why can’t you other wankers take a page out of his playbook? It’s only pain, wanksters!! No shame in flaming, just don’t cower and quiver like a CPOS.Pillsbury Raging Red Bull Doughboy–Wike slapped out some good stuff on the bike path, exploded with a huge attack on lap one up the hill, and followed with a rocket launch after the turnaround on lap 2. Took 400 people working together and a bus to reel him in. Ouchies! Coiled like a venomous snake, the Doughboy popped Davy Dawg in the sprunt. Like a gentleman stud, he denied winning. **NEWSFLASH** This just in! Eyewitness accounts confirm that Doughboy did NOT, repeat NOT, win the sprunt. Untrustworthy, unreliable, news source will no longer be paid under the table for last-minute finish result information.Terrible Teddy–Going with the Green Rock Racing look today, he attacked just before the turn on lap one by swinging way out into the right lane, maybe trying to replicate that move of two weeks ago when he did a u-ey in front of a fast moving, pissed off bitch who almost t-boned him. But you know what? AT LEAST HE SAW THE FRONT.Hockeystick–last lap on the rise after the light at the turnaround made a major suicidal move by following me and Somo in our trademarked “Flail & Blow” getaway gambit. Note to all wankers: He who follows a Wanky attack is doomed to fail! Hockeystick pulled like a champ, blew like a bad light bulb, but gave it his all, and watched as we got caught, compacted, and incinerated by the group. (Note: Them red shoe covers is ’bout plumb wore out, pardner. For $6.95 you might could get a new pair.)Backpack Eric–usually, ah, the, um, big backpack thing isn’t an indicator of, uh, cycling seriosity. Unless you’re Backpack Eric, who flails and flogs with his 46-pound rock collection and three-piece suit stuffed into a backpack. Very nice attack up the rise on one of the laps.

*Notes from underground

Gooseman down! Manny G. got picked off by a douchebag in an SUV on the way to NPR, and he’s now strapped down at UCLA with a busted elbow, snorting morphine and getting ready to go under the knife on Friday morning. Major suckage, as the boy was going well and bringing the pain the last few editions of NPR. Heal up, buddy! Email Boneyard Yule for tips on how to rehab an elbow (or spine, shoulder, back, leg, jaw, wrist…contact Prez for rehabbing multiple bruisings of the brain…chat up Stern-O for toof replacements).

Dave L. busted up on the Switchbacks! Possible tire failure on the Switchbacks downhill into the fast turn sent Dave off his bike at speed and into the ditch and then into the hospital with a broken hip, broken collarbone, broken ribs, and broken shoulder. You can’t use the word “fortunately” in a case like this, but fortunately he didn’t go into the opposite lane, didn’t have a head injury, and none of his buddies went down with him. Heal up!

G3 in jet coolant phase! In response to my inquiry re: G3’s attendance at Thursday’s NPR, I was advised that this is a “rest week,” hence his absence from the flailfest. The use of this phrase can only mean one thing…he’s training with Elron!! Which means, a la Roadchamp, G$, and others who have enrolled in Elron’s School of Pud Knocks, that G3 will soon be translating his tremendous ability and little orange fuzzy thing into huge RR wins.

Roadchamppost-REMR sighting!! Spied our hero returning from the REMR at 7:59 sharp, looking lean and dapper and fierce and fast, as usual. Oh, Little Town of Painlehem a/k/a San Dimas SR, coming up.